Clinton Fernandes is the author many books, including Sub-Imperial Power and Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era (Melbourne University Publishing).
Trump, like his predecessors, but now in overdrive, uses the Pentagon model of state-assisted capital formation because it facilitates US global military presence…
Amid the Iran chaos, Trump’s beatdown on Europe continues, a long-term plan to restrict its rivalry and dominate its markets. Will the Old World fight back?
AUKUS is an investment in US shipyards rather than the Australian economy. We are not buying submarines so much as subsidising the US Navy’s submarine budget.
Even before the invasion, extreme weather and the pandemic had resulted in higher shipping costs, energy price inflation, labour shortages, and rising food prices.
For as long as fossil fuels are being extracted, the Australian people should receive an equitable share of the profits from the sale of non-renewable natural resources. This will help them to adapt to climate change and manage the transition to a renewable economy.
The decision to acquire nuclear-powered boats reflects what has been the Australian Way of War for more than a century: to operate inside the strategy of a superpower by contributing a well-chosen, niche capability to augment the larger force.
Australian strategic planners are well aware that it would be absurd to protect trade with China from China… In the real world, the military build-up is about whether foreign military and intelligence activities can be conducted in another country’s exclusive economic zone.
Military historians are well aware that Australian governments have not gone to war for sentimental reasons or because they were duped. The organising principle of Australian foreign policy is to remain on the winning side of a worldwide confrontation between the empire and the lands dominated by it.
